Online via Zoom
Tuesdays | 1:00 – 3:30 pm EDT
Three online violin/viola pedagogy sessions for teachers and teens.
Open to those teaching in studios, schools or orchestras, to college students and to teens interested in teaching someday and improving their skills.
Scales are an essential part of our musical language and there are an infinite number of ways they can be of value in practice at all levels. We will explore and practice ways to assign scales and patterns at the elementary to advanced levels that develop and stretch our students’ skills and musicianship. In an effort to visualize sequences in the development and to clarify application, skills will be addressed in isolation, as expressed with varying musical concepts, and within excerpts from the standard repertoire.
Performing music at a high level requires more than faithfully executing the instructions written down by the composer. It involves musical interpretation. As artists, we engage with our knowledge of the composer and the style, the indications in the score, and our own feelings about the music and its meaning. It takes imagination, courage, and training–training that can begin at the most beginning levels of study and carry through advanced repertoire. This class will discuss specific teaching techniques to help encourage students of all levels to open up expressively and interpretively.
This class will discuss some strategies to help students at the intermediate and advanced levels move to a more sophisticated stage in their own playing by refining and varying some of the tools they already have, such as shifting, vibrato, bow distribution, and thinking of them as tools of expression and musicality.
With registration for each Hot Topics class, participants may also register for a one-hour private online follow-up session with the instructor. These sessions will be scheduled directly with the instructor at a mutually agreeable time. This time can be used as the teacher prefers (Lesson, pedagogy discussion, observation of a student video, etc.).
Questions about the series? Contact Rebecca Henry at rhenry@jhu.edu.
Note: Please check the website or call the Preparatory Office one week prior to class to confirm the date. For inquiries, please contact peabodyprepstrings@jhu.edu.
Director and instructor